THE DEVELOPMENT, STANDARDIZATION, AND INITIAL VALIDATION OF THE CHICAGO MULTISCALE DEPRESSION INVENTORY

Current self-report depression scales may overestimate depression symp toms in medical patients by including items measuring symptoms inheren t to many medical conditions. They may therefore reflect a patient's m edical rather than psychological state. We present the Chicago Multisc ale Depression Inventory (CMDI), a factorially derived self-report dep ression scale that includes Mood, Evaluative, and Vegetative subscales . The CMDI and its subscales were designed to be used separately or co mbined; we posit that the nonvegetative CMDI subscales are the most ac curate means of examining depression in medical patients. In this stud y we outline the development, standardization, and initial validation of the CMDI, a multistep process that required a total sample of 1,062 adults. We show the CMDI and each of its subscales to be internally c onsistent, reliable, and valid. Confirmatory factor analysis supports the CMDI factor structure. Finally, we report standardization scores f or each of the CMDI scales, derived from an age-, race- and gender-str atified standardization sample of 420 adults.